Depersonalization: Have you experienced this?

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What happened to me, quickly without boring the shit out of you.

Last August (2014) I was on a 30 mile bike ride, heat index was 108 and 27 miles in I lost all momentum, stopped, and was so dizzy I could not even sit up. So I lay there on the side of the road until my g/f picked me up. Since that time I've been going through 24/7 vertigo and weakness. Had MRIs, spinal taps, a bunch of esoteric tests involving vision and hearing and tons of bloodwork. For all that, no doctor was able to diagnose me with anything definitive.

So it's been a long road. My last visit to neurologist I described that after a year of trying to find things that could help me (with no help from medical professionals) I feel disconnected from everything and it makes it hard to focus on my job and home related chores and whatnot. My anxiety has been pretty high as well, aeven when I wake up(!) nd getting to sleep is a major battle. The only things that make me feel half-way normal are eating nothing but fresh fruits and vegetables, juicing (with lemons and other fruits not steroids lol), avoiding salt and MSG and zofran for nausea.

He suggested that I am going through depersonalization resulting from fatigue related to whatever this is that causes my vertigo and weakness. Going to the store is scary as hell for me, which it never bothered me before. And even when I do go out, the best way I can describe it is that I am looking though a "fisheye lens" to the world.

Found this video of a dude who has had similar symptoms for TWO years and here he talks about depersonalization and yes, I'm googling my ass off trying to find out what depersonalization actually is.

Have you experienced this and if so, what happened (or is happening) to you?

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You have described exactly what has been happening to me for about 5 years, i've never sought help for it in the traditional sense, i always put it down to psychological problems but that road never helped, it's not as bad as it used to be but i still have intense dizziness and loss of focus in my eyes, it feels like everything is pulling away from me and that i am a giant, it seems to come on when light in the area is mixed, so dark in front but bright elsewhere, i read somewhere it could be astigmatism but i've never had it validated, i've also been having as what i can only describe as prickly heat all over my body when i feel emotional, very uncomfortable & unnerving, have you experienced this? I've been putting off getting help for a long time now...would you keep us updated with how you get on please?

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Welcome to my entire life. I experience depersonalization and derealization 24/7 (self diagnosed via Internet research so I'm not *actually* clinically diagnosed). Depersonalization I've had for as long as I can remember before I was even a teenager. Although the derealization wasn't as big of a problem until ~5 years ago. I don't get many of the physical symptoms you're describing though. It's mostly psychological for me aside from things like restlessness and a constant urge to "get out," but that's the derealization coming in where I feel like I'm in an extremely similar like parallel universe and none of this is actually "real."

I can't remember a trauma or incident that happened around where mine started. It's just been like a lifelong thing as far as I can remember.

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I noticed I've gotten a lot less patient over small things and shitheadded fuckery in general (mostly facebook retardedness - I've learned to ignore trolls on here). Nothing 'violent' beyond smacking my keyboard. Don't know if its from depersonalization.

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ITT: affluent white men write at one another on a message board about their respective voids where their feelings of being-in-the-world should be and also share their opinions that it's unfortunate no pharmacologists can yet picture their disorder and sell back to them more enjoyable and believable existences

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I mean if you look at society and the actions that are expected of us and th eones we take part in... you'll see that all of us are sitting in front of some sort of screen for 8+ hours a day. talking to people we can't physically see/feel/hear. flooded with media and all sorts of general distractions. If you look at what we're doing objectively you'll see that we're literally just sitting in a spot for the majority of our days before we lay down in a spot for the night. sounds like a miserable existence? it is. disconnect yourself from what people expect us to be "connected" to. get the fuck off the internet. i'm telling you this on the internet, yes. I've been through this and the best thing I did was go on a 7 day camping trip with my girlfriend. it made me realize how fucking out of touch i am with myself and the world around me. find creative alternatives to pass your time, use your brain rather than just "reading articles on reddit" or whatever the fuck you guys do. draw, paint, allow yourself to create rather than just mindlessly consume. my advice can fuck off, or you can try it out, exhaust all your options before you just decide to succumb to it.

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draw, paint, allow yourself to create rather than just mindlessly consume. my advice can fuck off, or you can try it out, exhaust all your options before you just decide to succumb to it.

B..bbut what if my hobby that I'm passionate about involves staring at a editing program on a monitor screen a lot of the time. Where I love creating videos that I like, along with my fan base enjoying it as well. I do very much agree though how important it can be to stay away from browsing the internet and wasting far too much time for several days or much more than that. And instead spend more time outside and do things like camping, hiking, meeting new people and so on.

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draw, paint, allow yourself to create rather than just mindlessly consume. my advice can fuck off, or you can try it out, exhaust all your options before you just decide to succumb to it.

B..bbut what if my hobby that I'm passionate about involves staring at a editing program on a monitor screen a lot of the time. Where I love creating videos that I like, along with my fan base enjoying it as well. I do very much agree though how important it can be to stay away from browsing the internet and wasting far too much time for several days or much more than that. And instead spend more time outside and do things like camping, hiking, meeting new people and so on.

my personal philosophy is as long as you've reached equilibrium between consuming/creating then you'll be more fulfilled. Doesn't really matter which media, as long as you're creating and expressing yoruself. I know you were just pulling my leg but I wanted to put this out here anyway!

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I started getting depersonalization/derealization when my panic attacks started when I was 10 years old. It is a horrible mind fuck. I always described it to people as watching myself in a movie, I have no feeling of physical control of my body and feels like a narrative and someone else is controlling. If that even makes sense? I've looked at myself in the mirror and don't even recognize myself before and that spirals my anxiety. I don't know if it's become less or if I'm just better at handling them but I used to be crippled in fear and anxiety. I get them in random waves now.

Have they put you on anything for anxiety to help control your symptoms even temporarily? I take xanax (as needed) but my anxiety spiked the last few months and I'm thinking of getting back on a daily medicine to curb the panic attacks. I have to "ground" myself, shut my eyes, and avoid people as I'm experiencing my episodes while telling myself I'm real, I exist, and I'm in control. It used to last days to weeks and now it comes and goes within minutes.

I sound like a crazy person now. :p

eta: just wanted to add. My anxiety and panic attacks developed in the '90s when I did nothing but spend my entire existence outside with friends. Riding bikes, running, and being imaginative. Before video games, internet, and the computer. I still don't know WHY this happened. I really do think it's something that I've blocked out in my childhood or genetic shit going on in my brain. But maybe there's different reasons and explanations for everybody.

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My anxiety was bad as a child and I was put on Zoloft and Trileptol (sp?) as an 11 year old. To this day I still resent my doctor for putting me, a fucking child, on drugs that altered my brain chemistry drastically while my brain/body was undergoing extreme periods of growth and development. A lot of the anxiety stemmed from being unable to fully express my emotions during puberty so it kind of makes sense that you would be going through similar things during your childhood. But I felt as though any child since the beginning of time is going to go through these insane changes so I think psychiatrists should seriously work on better alternatives than just drugging up children.

However, I do think weight training, cardio, proper diet, and productive (stimulating) mental tasks have helped me better than any other pill I've been prescribed since I was 11-21 years old. I know you said your anxiety started out when you were young and experiencing these but you were also an entirely different person when you were 10 (atleast I hope so lol) and I think you should work your self to the bone. I've used this comparison before but depressed/anxious dogs are treated by giving them multiple walks per day rather than one, their mood increases significantly and they're more fulfilled and confident. Pushing yourself and your body is amazingly beneficial.

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My anxiety was bad as a child and I was put on Zoloft and Trileptol (sp?) as an 11 year old. To this day I still resent my doctor for putting me, a fucking child, on drugs that altered my brain chemistry drastically while my brain/body was undergoing extreme periods of growth and development.

Man fucking same here. My mom sent me to a therapist when I was like 8 and I started taking Zoloft. It literally fucked my life. Funny thing is I still haven't gotten off of it. Im 19

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I felt extreme Depersonalization for a few years starting in 2009 until I joined the Army in 2011. Me and a friend bought some weed off a stranger and it turned out to be laced with PCP, we tripped pretty hard but I got the worst of it. I guess this "triggered" the Depersonalization for me. I was pretty traumatized for a while and whenever I would think about that night I would get crazy light-headed and feel almost as if i was tripping again. About a week after the event, I realized that everything I had done since then felt like i was taking a back seat ride on my life and i was just looking through my eyes without really being in control.

That part is the hardest to explain, literally nothing I did felt real or the same as it used to. A few weeks after that, I began having panic attacks and i even made my mother bring me to the hospital one night because I thought I was going to die, after a few follow-ups they prescribed me a low dosage of Paxil and it helped for a while, but it ruined my appetite and made me feel like shit.

There was something about joining the Army that turned it all around though, I started feeling normal almost immediately when i was in basic training, and since then, I have only had a few fleeting moments of those old feelings, but I still get terrified when they do come. All-in-all I am much better off now and I wish that others who are feeling the way I felt could get some relief.

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If I can go through 4 raids, both my grandmas dying, everything i own stripped from me, now living in a tent on my cousins property...from a family of 6 to a family of 12 in a 2 bedroom....all this in just 10 months???

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My anxiety was bad as a child and I was put on Zoloft and Trileptol (sp?) as an 11 year old. To this day I still resent my doctor for putting me, a fucking child, on drugs that altered my brain chemistry drastically while my brain/body was undergoing extreme periods of growth and development.

Man fucking same here. My mom sent me to a therapist when I was like 8 and I started taking Zoloft. It literally fucked my life. Funny thing is I still haven't gotten off of it. Im 19

wut? Stop taking the pill...

Obviously not cold turkey but ween yourself off if you think it fucked your life. I can't fathom why you're still on it.

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>he took the path of least resistance-- again, after years of therapy or prescription drugs-- by joining up with every other jughead that was too lazy or ill-equipped to change and improve his/her life on his/her own by enlisting, so that he may be cared after by taxpayers for years to come and be told what to do by extrapaternal daddies in uniforms

>he actively improved his own life

u can only pick 1. fortunately for me i'm not at all miserable like u seem to need for me to be and my pp hasn't been bb sized since i was in utero

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>he took the path of least resistance-- again, after years of therapy and prescription drugs-- by joining up with every other jughead that was too lazy or ill-equipped to change and improve his/her life on his/her own by enlisting, so that he may be cared after by taxpayers for years to come and be told what to do by extrapaternal daddies in uniforms

I took liberty of bolding the parts you got wrong.

1: Path of least resistance? Sure, some may think the military is an easy way out of having to go to school and trying (in your case, fruitlessly I'm sure.) to get a job in the current economy, and sure, some people all-together disagree with a standing army in the first place. This point is just ignorant though, rub those two brain cells up there together and think for a minute, my brothers and I serve the country for a very paltry sum, I'm a Sergeant (E-5) with 4 years service. The majority of soldiers get out of the military at the rank of E-4 after serving three years. It is the toughest yet best times of our lives, I wish you could see what we do on a daily basis.

2: I never had counseling, never said I did either.

3: You have some obvious misunderstandings about the military, I also pay federal taxes therefore I am technically paying myself. If you are so disgruntled about us using federal taxes, stop paying over the required amount, change your withholdings so you don't get a tax return, therefore forgoing most of the governments interest free loan on your VERY HARD earned wages. We have the largest and most powerful military in the world, our airforce and navy have more aircraft than most nations combined, being in the #1 and #2 spots respectfully. The Army has the 4th most aircraft in the world. I'm a tanker, I command a 68 ton, tracked vehicle full of fuck you, the Army has thousands of M1 Abrams, I am currently signed for an 8 million dollar vehicle pluss all of the additional equipment that comes with it.

You're profession appears to be peace, mine is combat, when you fail at yours. I won't fail at mine.

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hrr i'm such a big fucking baby i smoked pcp once by accident with my retarded friend and eventually wound up enlisting in the army in order to make myself feel normal again and regain control of my life literally by giving it over to the largest power i could imagine anderp i actually prefer not to be the commander of my own ship, only these equally expendable tanks full of fuck and what's more it's really the case that i like nothing better than reporting to my extra daddy on them (these fuck tanks i've been assigned) and in so doing living off of the myriad everyday efforts of millions of faceless taxpayers